True Christian discipleship is the process of learning to live from Christ instead of for Christ. Imagine Christ clothing himself in your personality and body as the vehicle through which He is going to live His life. Thinking and looking from you, what do you believe Jesus’s thoughts and feelings are? Does He feel anxious when thinking from within you about circumstances and situations you are facing? Does He feel threatened by a sense of inadequacy in certain environments? Does He view reality and the future with cynicism and skepticism and limitation?
To abide in Christ is to surrender to His perception and His perspective about everything. We must come to a place where we surrender to the truth of his greatness and adequacy in us, and therefore our greatness and adequacy in Him. That is not a statement of arrogance or pride. It is what true humility is, which is simply acknowledging that apart from Him, I can do nothing but that I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me. 1 John 4 says, “… as He is, so are we in this world.” When we finally start surrendering to the reality of His life and limitless resources in us, then we will start seeing everything that’s ahead of us through His eyes and His potential. This changes everything. When you start living like this, then you start taking dominion and shaping the environment around you with His reign and glory. There needs to be a radical shift in the internal reality within us founded upon our union with Christ because once there is then will be able to start shifting the external reality around us.
Romans 13:14 says, “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regards to its strong feelings.” The words “put on” literally mean in the Greek “to sink into.” We need to “sink into” Christ and live from the way He perceives and feels about everything we’re facing, one situation and one temptation at a time. The Christian life is not inviting Christ into our situations, knowing that we need Him to help us. Instead, the Christian life is Christ inviting us to live by Him who has taken ownership of all our situations. This is living from the inside out.